Happy Easter to one and all! Christ has risen; He has truly risen; let us sing Alleluia! Easter is the highlight of our faith. For we believe with all our hearts, minds, bodies and souls that Christ has risen from the dead. As a result, we have been given eternal life. There are many people who do not believe this. Even some Christians have doubts. They say that we who are believers are fools and faith is ridiculous. They also say that Jesus died on the cross and that was it. Case closed. Death swallow us up in a meaningless, dark void and we simply cease to exist. But we who are believers feel sorry for these unbelievers who have little or no faith. In fact, we choose to pray for them and love them even more as they make fun of us. For faith in the resurrection means we believe in life beyond this life and that eternal life begins not when we die, but the moment we are baptized. We believe that the God who gives us existence and preserves us alive all our days will continue to give us the gift of life for all eternity. We know God has given us life now. Why would we assume God would stop giving us life when our bodies die? It seems to me that it makes more sense to hope for life beyond death. After all, I’m alive now, and that’s quite a miracle. Scientists tell us that each of our cells holds some 20,000 different types of protein. That’s some 100 million protein molecules in every one of our cells. There are some 20 million kilometers of DNA in the ten thousand trillion cells in our bodies: “Your heart must pump 75 gallons of blood an hour, 1,800 gallons every day, 657,000 gallons a year...” Every one of the trillions of cells in our bodies will replace themselves several times during our earthly life. So even though our bodies change, we continue to exist. Why should we assume that the power that has made us will stop making us after our present body dies? It seems more reasonable a bet to think the God who has created us will continue to grace us with existence in a marvelously new, and hopefully, thinner, resurrected body. Happy Easter for we will rise with Him each day and always!                                                                          ~ Fr. John